The Use of BEREP4 Immunohistochemistry Staining for Detection of Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) is the most common type of malignant cancer found in the world today with a 3–10% increase in incidence each year. The American Cancer Society reported that 8 out of 10 patients with skin cancer are suffering from BCC with over 2 million new cases each year. BCC needs to be detected at the early stages to prevent local destruction causing disabilities to patients and increasing treatment costs. Furthermore, BCC patients who have undergone surgery are still at risk for recurrence, especially when the surgery performed fails to remove all the BCC cells, even when conventional histopathological testing after surgery has reported a surgically free margin. This review aims to evaluate studies on the use of BerEP4 immunohistochemistry staining on pathological sections of various types of BCC as well as its shortfalls. BerEP4 is a monoclonal antibody which detects specific epithelial-glycoprotein-adhesion-molecules (EpCAM) found on BCC cells. Various studies have shown that BerEP4 has a high sensitivity and specificity in detecting only BCC cells. The use of BerEP4 immunohistochemistry testing for the routine examination of cases of BCC is expected to be able to increase and improve early diagnosis as well as prevent recurrence after surgery.

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Field Geometric Calibration Method for Line Structured Light Sensor Using Single Circular Target

To achieve fast calibration of line structured light sensor, a geometric calibration approach based on single circular calibration target is proposed. The proposed method uses the circular points to establish linear equations, and according to the angle constraint, the camera intrinsic parameters can be calculated through optimization. Then, the light plane calibration is accomplished in two steps. Firstly, when the vanishing lines of target plane at various postures are obtained, the intersections between vanishing lines and laser stripe can be computed, and the normal vector of light plane can be calibrated via line fitting method using intersection points. After that, the distance from the origin of camera coordinate system to the light plane can be derived based on the model of perspective-three-point. The actual experimental result shows that this calibration method has high accuracy, its average measuring accuracy is 0.0451 mm, and relative error is 0.2314%. In addition, the entire calibration process has no complex operations. It is simple, convenient, and suitable for calibration on sites.

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Delayed Presentation of Submucosal Retained Toothbrush from Self-Inflicted Injury in Patient with Schizophrenia

Foreign body ingestion occurs in not only children but also adults, particularly those with history of neurologic disease, alcohol use, or psychiatric disease. We present the case of a 40-year-old male with schizophrenia who presented to the emergency room with a long history of pharyngeal foreign body sensation which had recently progressed to include trismus, odynophagia, and dyspnea. Flexible laryngoscopy demonstrated fullness of the right posterior pharyngeal wall and computed tomography (CT) showed a linear opaque foreign body extending from the level of the oropharynx to the thyroid ala. Further history elicited that he stabbed himself in the pharynx two years prior with a toothbrush following a command hallucination. The toothbrush was removed uneventfully via an external approach. The patient was discharged with psychiatry follow-up. This case is unusual due to the submucosal location of the foreign body and the length of retention. It demonstrates the atypical nature which patients with comorbid psychiatric illness may present following foreign body injury and the use of an external surgical approach for the removal of a retained foreign body based on CT reconstruction.

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Effect of Zinc Supplementation on Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 15 Randomized Controlled Trials

We aimed to examine the effects of zinc supplementation on nutritional status, lipid profile, and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory therapies in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled clinical trials of zinc supplementation. Metaregression analyses were utilized to determine the cause of discrepancy. Begg and Egger tests were performed to assess publication bias. Subgroup analysis was utilized to investigate the effects of zinc supplementation in certain conditions. In the crude pooled results, we found that zinc supplementation resulted in higher serum zinc levels (weighted mean difference [WMD] = 28.489; ), higher dietary protein intake (WMD = 8.012; ), higher superoxide dismutase levels (WMD = 357.568; ), and lower levels of C-reactive protein (WMD = −8.618; ) and malondialdehyde (WMD = −1.275; ). The results showed no differences in lipid profile. In the metaregression analysis, we found that serum zinc levels correlated positively with intervention time (; ) and varied greatly by ethnicity (). Results from Begg and Egger tests showed that there was no significant bias in our meta-analysis (). Results of subgroup analysis supported the above results. Our analysis shows that zinc supplementation may benefit the nutritional status of MHD patients and show a time-effect relationship.

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Wireless Brain-Robot Interface: User Perception and Performance Assessment of Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Patients suffering from life-changing disability due to Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) increasingly benefit from assistive robotics technology. The field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has started to develop mature assistive applications for those patients. Nonetheless, noninvasive BCIs still lack accurate control of external devices along several degrees of freedom (DoFs). Unobtrusiveness, portability, and simplicity should not be sacrificed in favor of complex performance and user acceptance should be a key aim among future technological directions. In our study 10 subjects with SCI (one complete) and 10 healthy controls were recruited. In a single session they operated two anthropomorphic 8-DoF robotic arms via wireless commercial BCI, using kinesthetic motor imagery to perform 32 different upper extremity movements. Training skill and BCI control performance were analyzed with regard to demographics, neurological condition, independence, imagery capacity, psychometric evaluation, and user perception. Healthy controls, SCI subgroup with positive neurological outcome, and SCI subgroup with cervical injuries performed better in BCI control. User perception of the robot did not differ between SCI and healthy groups. SCI subgroup with negative outcome rated Anthropomorphism higher. Multi-DoF robotics control is possible by patients through commercial wireless BCI. Multiple sessions and tailored BCI algorithms are needed to improve performance.

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Low-Dimensional Motor Control Representations in Throwing Motions

In this study, we identified a low-dimensional representation of control mechanisms in throwing motions from a variety of subjects and target distances. The control representation was identified at the kinematic level in task and joint spaces, respectively, and at the muscle activation level using the theory of muscle synergies. Representative features of throwing motions in all of these spaces were chosen to be investigated. Features were extracted using factorization and clustering techniques from the muscle data of unexperienced subjects (with different morphologies and physical conditions) during a series of throwing tasks. Two synergy extraction methods were tested to assess their consistency. For the task features, the degrees of freedom (DoF), and the muscles under study, the results can be summarized as (1) a control representation across subjects consisting of only two synergies at the activation level and of representative features in the task and joint spaces, (2) a reduction of control redundancy (since the number of synergies are less than the number of actions to be controlled), (3) links between the synergies triggering intensity and the throwing distance, and finally (4) consistency of the extraction methods. Such results are useful to better represent mechanisms hidden behind such dynamical motions and could offer a promising control representation for synthesizing motions with muscle-driven characters.

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Insulin Resistance and Its Association with Metabolic Syndrome in Korean Children

Background. This study investigated the association between insulin resistance (IR) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in children. Methods. A cross-sectional study involving 1036 healthy children aged between 7 and 13 years was conducted. Homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was calculated as an index of IR. Participants were classified according to the HOMA-IR quartiles. Results. Incremental, linear trends were found in age (), body mass index (BMI) (), body fat (), waist circumference (), resting blood pressures (BP) (), triglycerides (TG) (), total cholesterol (TC) (), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) (), FBG (), and insulin (

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